


Alkaline

by queuebird



Series: AELDWS 2019 [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Arthur/Eames Last Drabble Writer Standing, Chemistry, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-09-23 01:49:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20332060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queuebird/pseuds/queuebird
Summary: Eames discovers pH strips.





	Alkaline

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks [Citrine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrinesunset) for the beta!

“What are these then?” Eames holds the tiny strip of paper up to the light and squints at it. It’s an orangey-yellow color, almost too small and thin for Eames to grasp in his fingers, and one end looks like it’s been dipped in sea green ink. There’s a pile of them on Yusuf’s desk, dipped in varying shades of colors—orange and green and blue. It could be an artistic statement.

“Ah.” Yusuf takes his glasses off and nods. “pH strips. You put them into a solution, and the color they turn indicates how acidic or basic the solution is.” Yusuf holds up a small canister containing fresh pH strips. A rainbow of colors is on the label, each color corresponding to a certain number. “The pH scale goes from one to fourteen with these. Goes up with the rainbow—higher numbers, cooler colors, more basic solutions.”

Eames takes the container and examines the label. Then he pops the cap, peels off a new pH strip, and sticks the end into his mouth.

“Um—” Yusuf sighs.

Eames pulls the strip out, frowns, then looks at Yusuf mournfully. “I’m only a seven,” he says.

“Yes—well,” Yusuf looks amused, “human bodies tend to be a bit—“

“Wait, hold on,” Eames says. “I’ve just got a brilliant idea.” 

~

“Ariadne, excellent work.” Eames pats a small pH strip onto the table next to Ariadne’s complicated cardboard maze, the dipped end a forest green—a nine.

“Thanks?” Ariadne says.

“Yusuf, nice job slapping Arthur,” Eames says. A lime-tipped pH strip flutters onto Yusuf’s desk.

Yusuf looks at it, then up at Eames. “Is that where all my used ones went?”

Eames moves on. “Cobb—ehh, could be better.” Cobb receives a reddish strip of paper, a three. He regards it with distracted confusion before turning back to the whiteboard and resuming contemplation over the large square he’s drawn.

Arthur’s sprawled on the lawn chair dreaming, soft in his sleep. Eames crouches down by his side and admires him.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he says lowly, “but really I think you’re alright.” He tucks the dark blue, almost purple pH strip into the gauze around Arthur’s wrist.

Later, Eames discovers, laid neatly on top of his notes on Browning, a dark blue paper strip and a note in Arthur’s scrawl.

_You aren’t so bad yourself, Mr. Eames._

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://queuebird.tumblr.com)


End file.
